Ralph Lauren quietly shuttered its two-year-old 20,000-square-foot store last week. Other brands are expected to close boutiques in a city that has lost its luster for cash-rich mainland Chinese tourists.

Fashion Scoops: Strength in Numbers… Stars Come Out… Changing Lanes…

Rei Kawakubo is collaborating high and low.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: Rei Kawakubo is collaborating high and low. Beside the one-off line she’s doing for H&M this winter, the Comme des Garçons designer approached Louis Vuitton and will design six handbags that will be sold exclusively in a temporary Louis Vuitton shop at the Comme des Garçons store in Tokyo’s Aoyama district this fall. Kawakubo said the collection would include two original “party bags” she designed, plus reeditions of two 30-year-old handbags and customized versions of two current monogram styles. The temporary store is slated to open Sept. 4 with an interior she described as half luxury, half raw. Meanwhile, Kawakubo disclosed that she’s designed a red, pie-shaped shop concept that will house her Comme des Garçons for H&M collection in its entirety in 20 select locations, with smaller versions in a great number of doors come early November. She’s also tapped photographer Peter Lindbergh for the campaign that will feature Missy Rayder, among others.

CHANGING LANES: Andrew Keith, vice president of merchandising at Lane Crawford, was wearing a new hat during men’s fashion week. He said he was recently named president of Joyce Boutique Holdings Ltd., succeeding Adrienne Ma, who along with her mother, Joyce, exited the business last November.

FOR THE RECORD: Hey Mr. — and Mrs. — Deejay. Photographer Nick Knight is rounding up his formidable circle of fashion friends and having them spin records live on his Showstudio.com Web site. The project, dubbed Fashion Deejays, is in tandem with Swarovski and will see the likes of Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Naomi Campbell and Giles Deacon hitting the decks over three days starting July 9.

ROAD THRILLS: Karl Lagerfeld’s fame in Paris seems to have taken yet another leap thanks to his current billboard campaign for road safety. Last week, Steven Klein was photographing the designer for an upcoming feature in Vogue when the pair tried to cross the street in front of Lagerfeld’s house. Pandemonium ensued, Lagerfeld said, prompting Klein to joke, “It’s worse than Madonna.”

A SMASHING GOOD TIME: Party guests don’t typically take sledgehammers to elevators, rip up carpets or throw roaring speed-boat engines into bath tubs and shove them through walls. But then most hosts don’t choose demolition as their party theme. Scenes of anarchy greeted guests attending the pre-renovation bash at Paris’s gargantuan Le Royal Monceau hotel last week. Twenty-five contemporary artists had artistically ruined rooms for the occasion, including China’s Wang Du and France’s Yoann Saura, who bagged an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in February on the strength of his installation: a toilet pierced with light sticks.

On the third floor, guests were invited to help tear down the hotel’s dowdy decor. “I’m gonna smash everything,” yelled Cory Kennedy, rushing into Andre and Olympia Scarry’s all-black room, fitted out with battered couches and a giant disco ball. Kanye West, who roamed the corridors with a bemused-looking Yves Carcelle, said that trashing hotel rooms was old hat. “Yeah, you know, the usual throwing the telly out of the window type of thing,” he said. Cécile Togni, meanwhile, part of Paris’s Putafrange DJ act, disclosed that the trio have come up with a clothing line for the contemporary chain Maje, due to premiere in Colette in December. Philippe Starck, who’ll be overseeing the complete redesign of the hotel, said he’s had enough of fashion. “I’m focusing on democratic eco-friendly projects,” he said, describing one mini Starck energy-generating windmill that will hit French supermarkets next year. “I’m also working on a green building in L.A. that I can’t really talk about yet,” he said. “But it’s going to be big.”

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@rebeccaminkoff is bringing self-checkout to high fashion: The brand has partnered with @queuehop to bring its customers self-checkout options, beginning this holiday season at its SoHo store. (📷: @aurorarosephoto)